Why did BT keep sending bills after father had died?

Working out exactly how BT worked out a bill for my father after he had died was the problem.
Photograph: Alamy

My father died in June last year and BT has continued to charge him £70-£80 a month. It has advised that he should have terminated the landline agreement, which is absurd – as he was dead. My 91-year-old mother is now out of pocket by over £1,600.

Problems began when my parents moved in 2016. We phoned BT to transfer their phone and broadband to a new address and to inform them I would now be paying for the line as they were incapable of managing their affairs.

We were told that a new account would therefore have to be set up, but it seems BT did not cancel the old one. I only discovered this when I gained financial power of attorney for my mum and had access to her joint bank account with my father.

No bills from the old address were forwarded to the new address, despite the fact that we’d set up mail forwarding for 12 months after they moved. BT is refusing to refund the money, claiming that they have no record that my parents had moved. Moreover, they have refused to send a copy of the contract, so we can’t understand why over £70 was debited each month when the standard package is £29-£45 and no phone calls were made on the old line since 2015.

PT, York

To your surprise BT suddenly contacts you out of the blue with an apology and a full refund. The prompt was, alas, not a tweak of conscience but an overture from the Observer. It declines to explain why the account was not cancelled and why your protests fell on deaf ears.

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